The Gaspee Days Committee at
www.gaspee.COM
is a civic-minded nonprofit organization that operates
many community
events
in and around Pawtuxet Village, including the famous
Gaspee Days Parade
each June. These events are all designed to commemorate
the burning of
the hated British revenue schooner, HMS Gaspee,
by Rhode Island
patriots in 1772 as America's 'First Blow for
Freedom'®. Our
historical research center, the Gaspee Virtual Archives
at www.gaspee.ORG
, has presented these research notes as an attempt to
gather further
information
on one who has been suspected in, or being associated
with, the
burning
of the Gaspee. Please e-mail your comments or
further questions
to webmaster@gaspee.org.

Evidence
to indict Esek Hopkins:

From
the Washington Post,
Sunday
April 14, 1907, page 3: "Earliest of Sea Fighters:
The First
Captain Ever Appointed in the US Navy (a short biography
of Esek
Hopkins):

Certain townsmen
of Providence made
a daring attack on the British war vessel
Gaspee, which
vessel had been in the
habit of
boarding and examining all examining all incoming and
outgoing vessels. They
caught the Gaspee
when she was
aground, boarded
and fired her. She
was burned to the
water's edge. Amont
the boarders were
the personal friends
of Hopkins, which,
fact leaked out afterwards, and it was understood that
Hopkins was among
them.

Now,
granted, the Washington
Post is
a newspaper with a fairly good reputation through the
years, but we
feel that the comment that "...it was understood that
[Esek] Hopkins
was among them" is not a terribly strong argument that
he did, in fact,
participate in the burning of the Gaspee.
After all, his son, John B.
Hopkins,
was known definitively to have been on the raid, and was
prominently
cited as having been a commander of one of the attacking
boats by
eyewitnesses. Had Ezek Hopkins been directly involved,
it seems a man
of such community standing would have surely been
mentioned by one of
the several eyewitness accounts.

On the other hand, as an editorial policy, the Gaspee
Virtual Archives
will respect the identification of any attacker made by
a reputable
source of history. We have discovered no evidence
that refutes
the claim, as weak as it may be.

From:
An Historical Sketch of The Town of Scituate, R.I.;
Part
2http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ri/providen/scituate2.txt
(stale
link 2009):

Esek,
soon after the death of his
father in
the
summer of 1738, a stout, tall and handsome young man,
then in the
twentieth
year of his age, bid adieu to the old homestead and
journeyed to
Providence
and became a sailor, soon rising to the position of
Captain. He
married
when he was twenty-five years of age, Miss Desire
Burroughs, daughter
of
Mr. Ezekiel Burroughs, of Newport, and took up his
residence
there.
His conspicuous services in the war of the revolution,
as the first
commodore
of the navy are well known. His fleet, consisting of
the ships Alfred,
Capt. Dudley Saltonstall, and the Columbus,
Capt. Whipple, the
brig
Andrew Doria, Capt. Nicholas Biddle, and the Cabot,
Capt.
John
B. Hopkins, son of Esek, and the sloops Providence,
Fly, Hornet and
Wasp, put out to sea Feb. 17, 1776, with a smart
north-east wind, and
cruising
among the Bahaman Islands, captured the forts at New
Providence,
Nassau.
This was a very fortunate affair, for the heavy
ordinance and stores
taken
proved quite acceptable to the country. He captured
two British armed
vessels
on his return.

Esek was descended from the Thomas Hopkins that emigrated
to
Plymouth Plantation in 1635, and he was raised in his
mother's Quaker
religion. His great-granduncle was
Benedict Arnold, the first governor of
Rhode Island (not to be confused with the much later
Benedict Arnold
the traitor). He grew up in the small
agricultural community of Scituate to the West of
Providence, RI, the
fourth of eight children. He had little formal education,
was taught by
his fiesty mother and
in the public schools, and eventually left to find his
fortune on the
docks of Rhode Island. In his travels he met and c1741
<>married
Desiree Burroughs (1720) of Newport, the daughter of
wealthy shipping
magnate, Ezekiel Burroughs.

During King George's War of 1743 to 1748 and the French
and Indian War
of 1754 to 1763, Esek Hopkins was heavily involved in
privateering
against the both the Spanish and French merchant fleets.
and he
steadily gained experience, wealth, and reknown for his
captures on the
high seas.

Esek
Hopkins is one of the subjects of an early American
painting (1755) by
John Greenwood entitled "Sea Captains
Carousing in Surinam",
one of the originals of "Dogs Playing Poker"
genre. Surinam
(Suriname)
was a Dutch colony on the North coast of South America
known for its
slave plantations. It was a predominant trading
destination for Rhode
Island merchants during the 18th century who exchanged
lumber, horses,
rum, and African slaves for sugar, coffee, and cocoa in
what is known
as the Triangular Trade. Esek Hopkins was a
mariner who often sailed for the Brown family, and
commanded the
disasterous slave trading voyage of the Sally in 1764,
during which most of
his cargo of 140 African slaves died. Details
of the
voyage of the Sally,
as well
as original source documents, and more information about
Rhode Island's
involvement in slavery are found at Brown
University's
Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice.

Right: Detail
inset from Sea
Captains Carousing in Surinam (c1752-1758)
by John
Greenwood
(1727-1792) courtesy St. Louis Art
Museum. Left
to right at table: Nicholas
Cooke,
Esek Hopkins, Stephen
Hopkins
(asleep), and
Joseph Wanton. Click to view entire image.
There is some
controversy as to whether this man in red was
actually Stephen Hopkins,
as per the said tradition of the original owners of
the painting, the
Jenckes family. Brown University professor Robert
Kenney believed that
this man must have been Esek and Stephen's other
brother, William,
since Stephen was at the time running for
re-election as Governor, and tied up in court in
Worcester MA while suing his arch rival Samuel Ward
for slander.

After
the colonial wars Ezek, along
with his equally famous brother Stephen
Hopkins, bought a store in Providence
that led to a successful and profitable career in a
mercatile and
ship-building partnership.

Per the 1770 List of
Providence Taxpayers, Esek Hopkins owned two
properties, and his
brother Stephen
Hopkins,
as well as a Christopher Hopkins and a Rufus Hopkins. This
Rufus was
probably
the Rufus Hopkins (c1726-1809) that was the son of Stephen
Hopkins, but
we have no idea who Christopher Hopkins was.We
do not hear much about the whereabouts of Ezek Hopkins
along the time
of the burning of the Gaspee
in 1772. His home was actually 25 miles south in
Newport where he
and his wife Desiree Burroughs Hopkins had nine
children. But as a
close associate of John Brown
and his
brothers, he had plenty of reason to have been in
Providence on the
night of June 9th.

As the dark clouds of impending war further settled on
the region, as
early as May, 1773, the Rhode Island Assembly ordered gun
platforms to
be installed in the fort protecting Newport under the
directions of
John Jepson
and Captain Esek Hopkins. Later,
the
Legislature thought better of reinforcing the defences
of exposed Newport and withdrew all the cannon to defend
Providence in
1774. On October 4, 1775 the
RI Assembly appointed Esek Hopkins as overall commander
of Rhode Island
militia forces, and conferred on him the rank of
brigader-general.

While at Congress, Esek's younger brother Stephen Hopkins
served on the
committees that prepared the
Articles of Confederation. Stephen's' knowledge of
the shipping
business made him particularly useful as a
member of the Naval Committee. He persuaded the Congress
in 1775 to
outfit 13
armed vessels and to commission them as the Navy of the
united
colonies. He also saw to it that Rhode Island received a
contract to
out
fit two of these, and
appointed his brother Esek Hopkins as its
commander-in-chief on
November 5, 1775.
From: Lucia Hammond Wheeler writing in Revolution
In
Three Acts

One morning in
February, 1776, it sailed past the Capes of the
Delaware
with Hopkins' flagship, the Alfred, (formerly
the Black
Prince)
flying the yellow-and-black rattlesnake flag "Don't
tread on me!"
Hopkins
was under secret orders to proceed to the island of
Abacco in the
Bahamas
and capture a large supply of gunpowder and other war
munitions stored
there. The fleet arrived off Abacco on March 1 - and
then and there
Hopkins
gave the time-honored phrase, "The Marines have
landed," a start in
life,
for he sent 200 of them ashore and shortly alter
captured Fort Nassau
and
the supplies. On the way home the little fleet took
two prizes and let
a third, the Glasgow, a heavily-armed vessel, get
away. Hopkins arrived
in New London April 8 with the sorely-needed
munitions, having
carried
out a daring exploit which earned him the thanks of
Congress.

All this might be
expected
to presage a brilliant career but
it
didn't.
Hopkins had an almost unexampled run of bad luck. He
was
court-marshaled
for misconduct in allowing the Glasgow to escape and
though he was
acquitted
the incident didn't help him any. Congress didn't
approve of his act in
donating Newport 26 captured guns to be used in
defending the city
against
the then-expected British. Sickness whittled down his
crews; Washington
sent him 200 men and then took them away from him. The
sailors didn't
get:
their pay and expressed themselves on the point with
nautical force and
fluency. On May 14 Hopkins was up before the Marine
Committee to answer
to a charge of breach of orders. He was tried Aug. 12
and censured by
Congress,
which then sent him to Newfoundland to operate against
the fisheries
and
British merchantmen. Privateering was rampant then and
he couldn't get
crews. The fleet didn't sail. They ordered him to Cape
Fear. Again he
was
unable to get men to man his ships. The sailors of New
England were all
at sea reaping a rich harvest of prize money. There is
no more tragic
figure
than Esek Hopkins, commanding a fleet which couldn't
sail because the
seafaring
population of New England had turned to legalized
piracy. Privateering
was the most profitable form of patriotism then extant
and everybody
was
going in for it enthusiastically, with a yo-heave-ho
and a
letter-of-marque.

The British fleet
bottled
Hopkins and his fleet up in
Providence
harbor
in December, 1776. Even a blockade didn't end Hopkins
troubles. He got
in trouble because he didn't go after the Diamond
when that
British
ship went aground on an island off the Warwick shore.

Wrote Hopkins to
William
Ellery, signer of the Declaration of
Independence
and delegate to Congress from Rhode Island:

"We are now blocked
up by
the enemys fleet the officers and
men are
uneasy, however I shall not desert the cause but I
wish with all my
heart
the Hon. Marine Board could and would get a man in my
room that would
do
the country more good than it is in my power to do,
for I entered the
service
for its good and have no desire to keep in it to the
disadvantage of
the
cause I am in."

A manly letter -
and a
heartbroken one. Hopkins was dismissed
from
the
service of the United States on January 2, 1778, an
action for which
Congress
ought to have been kicked.

Cooper, James Fenimore. History of the Navy of the
United States
of America. New York: Stringer & Townsend,
1856. Page 32.
(on-line in Google
Books).In January 2012 we received an
e-mail from
Nanci Kendall who is doing
research at the Gilder Lehrman Collection. According to a
letter
written to his wife by the illustrious hero Henry
Knox in April
1776, Esek Hopkins was prone to a profane streak:

I have been on
board
(with) Admiral Hopkins - and I’ve
been in Company with
his Gallant son who was wounded in the engagement with
the Glasgow
- the admiral is an
Antiquated figure, he brought to my mind Van Tromp the
famous Dutch
admiral - Tho’ antiquated in figure he is Shrew’d
& sensible [2] I
who you think am not a little enthusiastic [struck: as
you think]
should have taken him for an Angell only he swore now
& then which
to be sure is not angelic, his Son Capt
John Hopkins
is a sensible genteel man about 30 Years old and who
will one day (if
he don’t get kill’d) make a most formidable figure in
American History

Left:
portrait of Esek Hopkins by Wilkinson.
It should be noted that the same image of
Hopkins was redrawn and repainted by others
over the years most using the same pose with
differing backdrops. Compare to image above.

HOPKINS, Esek naval officer, born
in
Scituate, Rhode Island,
in 1718; died in North Providence, Rhode Island,
26 February, 1802.
When the Revolutionary war began he was
commissioned by General Francis
Cook as brigadier-general, and in December, 1775,
he was commissioned
by the Continental congress commander-in-chief of
the navy, and was
officially addressed by Washington as "Admiral
Hopkins." In February,
1776, he put to sea with the first squadron that
was sent out by the
colonies, consisting of four ships and three
sloop. The fleet sailed
for the Bahamas, and captured the forts at New
Providence, with eighty
cannon and a large quantity of ordnance stores and
ammunition. On his
return off Block island, he took the British
schooner "Hawke" and the
bomb-brig "Bolton," and was complimented
officially by the president of
congress for this success. Two days afterward he
attacked the
"Glasgow," of 29 guns, which escaped, and Hopkins
was censured. In
June, 1776, he was ordered by congress to appear
before the naval
committee to reply to charges preferred against
him for not annoying
the enemy's ships on the southern coast. He was
defended by John Adams
and acquitted, but unavoidable delays in getting
his ships ready for
sea at a later period gave his enemies another
opportunity for
complaint. He neglected a citation to appear in
Philadelphia, and on 2
January, 1777, was dismissed from the service. He
then settled near
Providence, exerted throughout a long life an
immense political
influence in Rhode Island, and was for many years
a member of the
general assembly.--His son, John Burroughs, naval
officer, was one of
the first captains of the Revolutionary navy,
being commissioned 22
December, 1775. He commanded the "Cabot" in the
expedition to the
Bahamas in 1776, and in April, 1779, sailed from
Boston in command of a
squadron, and captured, with small loss to his own
fleet, seven vessels
laden with stores, 200 men, and twenty-four
British officers.

In 1783, Paul
Allen and Esek Hopkins were in charge of adjudicating
claims for boats
that had been taken from citizenry for use in the
Revolutionary War.

While he
did not directly participate in the 1772 burning of the
Gaspee, we recognize
Admiral Esek Hopkins for his role in leading the early
stages of the American
Revolution. His dealings in the detestable slave
trade, however, inhibit our considering him as a hero.

Esek HOPKINS was born 26 Apr
1718 in
Providence,
RI. He died 26 Feb 1802. He was buried in North
Providence, RI. In 1741
Esek married Desire BURROUGHS daughter of Ezekiel
BURROUGHS. Desire was
born ABT. 1720 in prob. Newport, RI. They had
the following
children:

———. A True Representation of the Plan Formed at
Albany
for
Uniting All the British Northern Colonies, In Order
To [sic] Their
Common Safety and Defence [sic]: Containing
Abstracts of the
Authorities Given by the Several Governments to
Their Commissioners,
and of Several Letters From the Secretaries of
State, and Lords
Commissioners for Trade and Plantations Concerning
Such an Union:
Together With a Representation of the State of the
English and French
Colonies in North-America, and the Said Plan of
Union with the Doings
of the Commissioners Thereon: and Some Remarks on
the Whole.
[Newport, R.I.: James Franklin, 1755].

Rhode Island. Governor (1755-1765: Hopkins). The
Game
Cock
Readies to Strike: Abraham Whipple, Commander of the
Schooner Game
Cock, Receives Letters of Marque from Governor
Stephen Hopkins, 1759.
With an introduction by Bruce Campbell MacGunnigle.
East Greenwich:
Printed for the Society by Print Shops, 1993.

Stephen Hopkins' brother John married a Catherine Turpin., and his
sister Hope married
a Henry Harris.
According
to Whipple.org, Gaspee raid leader Abraham Whipple was
the
brother-in-law to Stephen Hopkins. Actually, Abraham
Whipple's wife was
Sarah Hopkins, the daughter of John Hopkins, (the
brother of Stephen),
so Abe's wife was Steve's cousin.